


Like the Enkindling of Stars

by Seebright



Category: Sky: Children of the Light (Video Game)
Genre: A General Thank-You To All The Players Who Saved Me From The Shrimp, And No Small Amount Of Hubris, Based on experience, Gen, The Shrimp Has Gotten Me More Times Than I'm Willing To Admit, This Particular Intrepid Explorer Has Found Their Way To The Golden Wasteland!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:34:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23010283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seebright/pseuds/Seebright
Summary: Bravery in the face of threat is a commendable thing. Not looking over one's shoulder when one is fully aware that there are dragons about is less so.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 97





	Like the Enkindling of Stars

It was dangerous here, but they were bold.

Their light burned boundless and eager and not even the dismal smogged skies, a dull poisoned green overhead, could pin them to the unclean sands below. It didn’t matter at all what lurked dark and watching above or what curdled through the old pooled water below, only that they could fly. And fly they did.

And, oh, it was wonderful to fly, wonderful to explore and unbearably new and exciting to peer into every dark crevice and ancient hole, decayed and so dark and wet that if they slipped for even a moment it would try to blot out their light and snuff their flame.

They didn’t much like the wet and the dark, but it was so much fun to burn all the brighter for it, to spread one’s wing and illuminate somewhere long left to ash.

Something that made this distinctly more difficult was that there were never quite enough others, here. Other little lights with bright, happy eyes and familiar calls that danced with them and fed their flame and took delight in showing them to secrets, to hidden things that glowed still, even here. They loved to follow, to see what their kin had seen, be it minutes before by a little flicker of new light or ages since by long-extinguished flame, and then to lead them to their own uncovered intrigues.

When there were friends to be had and laughter to be shared, they were never lonely or tired or cold. Those were the best adventures, they were sure, the ones undertaken by a held hand and constant, happy chatter of singsong voice.

They didn’t need the others, of course, journeys were also good when taken alone. They only very much liked the company. To experience something new and interesting with another there to be excited too was nearly better than coming across something they thought no one had seen a long time since, save them, right then, rediscovering it.

And it was... Reassuring. They weren’t often scared of anything, and they weren’t scared now, but a handful of lit candles to keep the others strong and lighted was much less time-consuming than alighting from one dull, lingering spark to the next, scattered like crumbs through the lightless land.

It was slow going, and often a little too cold for comfort, feeling their flame fade down where the effort of flight took a little too much from them, but they were determined.

A wasteland it was, an unknown allure! Already they’d found the soft blue of the elders’ spirits, always pleased to see them and so knowing, always ready to tell them things they hadn’t known and patient while they learned. They loved to learn, and they loved to chirp up at the tall, long-gone flames, chilled long since and lingering only in their last moments. They didn’t like the thought of the elders being all alone, out here in the dark and the cold, far from flock and warmer lands, so they’d visit them all.

The elders never chirped back, but that was alright. It was good to see them, and good to make them smile as the elders saw them learn what they had to teach.

They’d learned so much, and still the wasteland stretched ever onward, desolate and promising. Again they gave their resounding, exuberant call and jumped to meet the skies, lighter than cinders on the wind and burning a dozen times as scorching.

And heard, to their delight, another call in the distance. They returned it, high and echoed for distance, already winging to meet its owner, and caught a response just as fast, floating over the smooth dunes and under the thick clouds above and up to meet them.

How perfect! How wonderful! Another ventured out so far, just around the corner, flock and flame alike! Oh, already they had so much to show them! They released a singsong litany of greeting, raising their voice loud and clear as a bell, burning their flame that little bit faster and eating at their stores of light, yes, but hurtling through the sky like sparks, like stars!

And there they were, the flockmate perched on a black, uncanny jut of stained stone like bones or claws arched high over the sands, waving frantically at them and jumping in place, chirping endlessly now.

They couldn’t wave back, occupied with bracing their bright cape and spiraling down in a showy glide to meet the flockmate, but they gave a few cheerful chirps of their own as they circled closer.

And then they were awash with blue, with cold light not their own, not the elders’, known to them but sending a thrill of frightened heat through their heart unlike any flock’s warm glow. Behind them, the whir and gathering, dense hum of machinery, gone still and coiled, and the light flashed to dangerous red.

The flockmate gave a final, fearful trill that they now recognized had been desperate warning, and then they could think of nothing but their light flickering hot in their chest, spurring their flame to spark and ignite and send them hurtling down into a steep dive.

They weren’t close enough to cover, they realized as the humming crescendoed, rising to a level beyond hearing and deep enough to reverberate in their cloak, sputtering with the last sparks of their banked light and unable to send them shooting away like a gleam in the night.

They didn’t feel the impact, only the cold as the dark, immense creature struck them from the sky, sending them plummeting disoriented and breathless and wingless to the darker sands below.

And they stayed breathless, for it was out, it was blown to smoke, their light was gone.

They impacted the giving sand, bounced once, rolled and kept rolling as they struggled to understand. It took them less time than that to meet with a natural stop at the base of a broken archway, looming with shadow and old, forgotten menace over them as the blue light fell over it in turn, stopped by its broken canopy from touching them where they lay prone below it, and skated away. The mechanical hum quieted to a whisper, and then it was gone.

They’d never felt so tired. They’d never been tired before. Did the elders feel like this, snuffed out and crackled with old stone? It was no wonder they never chirped.

They felt like they’d never chirp again.

They laid there for moments, long seconds, but they were still frightened and now they noticed their flame was still alight, though feeble and dim, and those together were enough for them to roll to their side, and then lean on their hands to lift themself from the sinking, shifting sand below, and then stumble to their feet.

They’d never been cold before, not like this. They’d always had their light to burn it back, they had always, always had the sky. But now they could barely move, their limbs stiff as faintly warmed candlewax, their cloak lifeless at their back.

The flockmate, they could help. The flock always helped when it got cold.

They had to chirp, to call to them and let the flock know where they were. They tried.

But now their voice, so clear and proud, was nearly silent. There was no joy in the call, no boundless energy now. Muffled, dampened, dying.

They didn’t want to go out.

They sniffled and stood tall and searched deep within their chest and gave what might have been, at another time, a call so loud and resonant that flock might have heard it from miles and miles around.

Only a feeble beep.

But the flockmate heard anyway, they looked up and saw the brilliant flit of their hastily dipped cloak as the flockmate dropped to the sand beside them, chirping steady, constant and pitched high as they hovered around, hands held out like they didn’t know what to do with them.

They could only give that same weak blip of a call back, and they had no light to call to their own hands to share. They’d never had nothing to share before. It didn’t sit right, and they nearly thought the flockmate would leave them there, cold and frightened in that dark place that seemed so much vaster and darker now.

But the flockmate did no such thing, blinking their brightly lit eyes, worried and reassuringly warm, and drawing up a candle of their own flame to share anyway.

They felt the light, warm and welcoming and willingly given, wash over them like the shining of the cloudless day, and their own puttering flame rose to feed from it, using the radiance it gave off just existing near their own to pull itself back to life.

It guttered, struggling, for a moment, and then flared hot once again, and they could move once more. Their legs lost their stiffness and their hands tingled with returned life and they raised them before their eyes to see that they were vibrant once more, dark and warm as sun-soaked stone. They took a deep breath, swelled out their chest, and chirped for all they were worth.

The sound came deafeningly loud, ringing even in their own ears, and with it came their fierce joy, grown strong again with their flame.

The flockmate chirped back just as blaring, eyes narrowed with glee, and with a flutter of their cloak bounced high into the air to twirl a short, spiraling victory lap.

They called back, and then again, heart alight and joyful and returned to them once more, and spread their cloak and jumped into the air alongside the flockmate, chirping just to hear the jubilance of their own voice again, clear like trumpets and birdsong and with all the delighted force of a booming ray. They flapped once, again, let their light carry them higher and flipped gracefully over and over in the air, caught by the strong billow of their wing and the coasting of their fire, reveling in that the sky was theirs again.

There was a sound off in the distance and they snapped their head around, seeing a flicker of dark far off as the creature, vast and jointed and blacker than night, curled away deceptively slow on its own journey, far off but still too close.

Their next beep was low and buzzing, angry like spitting fires. They gathered themself and blared a triumphant call at the vicious thing, that it gave no mind to on its unknowable path. They weren’t afraid. Taken off guard, but not afraid, of course not.

Somewhere below but still high above the dunes and places they’d never fall to again, the flockmate gave their own call, just as loud and fearless.

Their light burned again hot and eager to explore and tempered only in the slightest, watchful of that single-eyed creature that clawed with blade-hands through the sky that was theirs, not its, and they let a final jaunty updraft coast them around, flaring their light and their voice at all those darkened things who would dare to face it.

Let them try! There were secrets to learn and places to discover and friends to help and endless, boundless light to share to buoy their wings and their song. Never would there be anything frightening in the face of that.

Not as long as they were still bold, and their flock was always nearby.

**Author's Note:**

> Should I have been studying while I wrote this up in the notes app of my phone? Yes, absolutely. Do I regret that? Not remotely. This game is so pretty, and it's got a particular feel to it, like walking around in the sunshine with nothing else to do and no worries at all. 
> 
> Except for the krill, or whatever we're calling them. Those, not so much.


End file.
